22 September 2012 10:00 PM

Of course hanging won't end all murders - but it will make criminals afraid to carry guns

Parliament sentenced hundreds of innocent people to death when it arrogantly abolished hanging in 1965. Many of those innocent people have yet to meet their killers, but that meeting will inevitably come.

Hundreds more, also thanks to the smugness of our sheltered power elite, will instead be horribly, terrifyingly injured.

But – because our medical skills have grown while our common sense has shrunk – they will survive to live damaged, darkened lives.

On the long list of Parliament’s victims, both dead and wounded, are many police officers. Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes, may they rest in peace, are just the latest.

Nobody can really claim to be surprised by this. In August 1966, a few months after the death penalty was got rid of, three police officers were murdered close to Wormwood Scrubs Prison.[related]

Our once-peaceful country was so shocked that a memorial service was held in Westminster Abbey for the three – Geoffrey Fox, Stanley Wombwell and Christopher Head.

But the Prince of Liberal Smugness, the then Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, airily dismissed calls for a return of the gallows. ‘I will not change my policy in the shadow of recent events, however horrible,’ he said, in a statement of such bone-headed obstinacy that it ought to be carved on his tombstone.

If the murder of three policemen by an armed gang of crooks, months after hanging was abolished for that very offence, was not a reason to change a policy, then what would change his mind? The answer was that nothing would.

Like all such people, he knew he was right, and ‘civilised’ – and neither the facts nor common sense would change what he pleased to call his mind.Now, after the Manchester killings, there has been an attempt to divert us into an argument about arming the police. Almost every account of these deaths, rather oddly, stressed that the two officers were unarmed.

Why? There’s no suggestion that Fiona Bone or Nicola Hughes would have been safer if they had been armed. Do we want to turn the police into executioners? In any case, the police of this country are armed, and have been for years.

Not all of them carry weapons, but the proud boast of this country in my childhood, that we were the only major nation whose police did not carry guns, long ago ceased to be true.

We weren’t asked about it. But then again, we weren’t asked about abolishing the death penalty. No political party ever put that policy in its manifesto. To this day it has not been properly discussed.

Few people understand that supporters of the gallows never pretended it would deter all murders. They believed it deterred criminals from carrying lethal weapons.

We have in fact had two experiments to see if this is so. The death penalty was suspended in this country for much of 1948, while Parliament debated (and rejected) its abolition. It was suspended again from August 1955 to March 1957, during a similar debate. After 1957 the penalty was much weaker, though it still protected police officers.

Colin Greenwood, a retired policeman, studied the statistics and found a marked leap in violent and armed offences during 1948, followed by a return to the previous level. There was another rise in 1956-57, followed by a slight fall. There was a third significant rise in the mid-Sixties, which has continued more or less ever since.

The carrying and use of guns and knives by criminals just grows and grows. Jay Whiston, whose dreadful death I mentioned last week, is one victim of this. The Manchester police officers are two more.

But these are the cases we all hear about. Far, far more common are dreadful events in which heroic doctors and nurses save the lives of people who would undoubtedly have died of comparable wounds 50 years ago.

Last week, in my beautiful, civilised home town, Oxford, two men were jailed for attacking Kirk Smith in his home, in a petty, moronic robbery – of £20 and two phones.

Abdul Adan, 21, was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years (in reality he will serve half that) for stabbing Mr Smith four times, after first smashing his nose. Mr Smith’s wounds were appalling. They ‘bared his intestines’, as the court report puts it. Adan’s accomplice, Michael Edwards, 25, got three-and-a-half years, which of course he will not serve in full.

Did these assailants care whether they killed him? Did they, in fact, fear the law at all? How many such crimes have been and will be committed in our supposedly civilised, liberal country this year? More than you think.

Are any of us safe in our homes, or on the streets, or on late-night buses and trains, from people such as this? Will anything be done to put it right?

You know the answer.

And people wonder why I despise politicians and all their works.

IS BEING HONEST REALLY SUCH A SHOCK?

I never thought much of Mitt Romney, but all these leaks have made me warm to him. Why is it a ‘gaffe’ to be honest?

Left-wing politicians do bribe millions of voters with welfare handouts, paid for from the taxes of Right-wing voters.

And the Arab leadership in Gaza and the West Bank have no interest in permanent peace with Israel.

We say we want truthful politicians, but when we get them, we fling up our hands in mock shock.

SEEING SENSE ON A POINTLESS WAR

It is good to see that conventional wisdom is now coming round to the view that our military presence in Afghanistan is a pointless and bloody waste of time.

Parliament is actually debating it.

Why, in a few months, everyone will want to leave, and most of them will believe that they have thought so all along. Well, they didn’t.

When I began my long campaign for withdrawal, in November 2001, the Afghan war was a ‘good war’. In 2006, when Comrade Doctor Lord John Reid committed us more deeply, saying, absurdly, ‘We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years’ time without firing one shot’, the intervention was still popular.

Peter Mandelson said that you have to go on saying something long after you are sick of saying it before anyone will take any notice. This is true.

But so many have died in the meantime. Why are we so slow to see the truth?

Sarah Catt goes to jail for eight years (four, really) for aborting a big baby, in the final week of pregnancy.

But it’s perfectly legal to abort a small baby, to call it a ‘foetus’ instead of a human being, and to sneer that it is ‘just a blob of jelly’.

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@Joshua Wooderson | 09 October 2012 at 12:33 PM

" Locke's view of personhood is entirely compatible with a modern scientific understanding."

Has now become...

"What bearing modern science does have on Locke's theory of the self doesn't seem to contradict it."

So you see what's happened here. In the first statement the *whole* of Locke's theory is *compatible* with modern science, all of it. In the second statement we have very much less of Locke's theory *seeming* not to *contradict* it. I presume "what bearing" is suggesting relatively little. And far from being in harmonious relationship, which is what compatible means (OED), we are now only non-contradictory.

This is not an obsession, sir, it is a study. I re-read Peter Hitchens piece and the following is a sample of the expressions he used in response to your argumentation...

It's been a long journey, sir, and thank for your patience, but I am bound to conclude that Peter Hitchens was right. In mitigation, sir, and in consideration of the consistency with which the goal posts were moved, perhaps you don't realise you are doing it.

Paul P – I'm beginning to think that this has become an obsession of yours, to the point where you're seeing 'goalpost shifts' that just aren't there. If something has little bearing (perhaps I should say 'no bearing') on something else, then the two are compatible. The fact that Tony Blair was first elected in 1997 has no bearing on whether or not I'm wearing a blue jumper. Therefore the two facts are compatible.

If your gripe is with my use of the word 'little', then I should add that what bearing modern science does have on Locke's theory of the self doesn't seem to contradict it.

No implication of prejudice intended, sir, nor is there any actual prejudice. I just tell it as it is. I presume you do the same, sir.

"A bit rich, don't you think, sir, after yourself pontificating."

Pontification is not the same thing as semantic pedantry. The one does not perforce invite the other. Pontification is a profession of infallibility, which of course I am not, sir. That is to say infallible. Semantic pedantry is an obsession with the precise meaning of words and the precision with which they are applied within the context of the discussion. Your splitting of hairs over the words 'abort' and 'killing' suggested to me, sir, that you are a semantic pedant.

"Might one not even be tempted - carefully avoiding any suggestion of semantic pedantry, of course - to describe the process as being rather more dynamic still and call it "life"."

It is life in the sense that replicating cells are replicating. This is a definition of basic life. My Concise Oxford Dictionary has the primary definition of life thus...

"State of functional activity and continual change peculiar to organised matter, and esp. to the portion of it constituting an animal or plant before death."

Between the fertilisation of the embyonic cell and the birth of the child the "process", as you call it sir, is continuously dynamic. As the law stands at the moment, 'life' (for the purpose of accommodating an unlawful ending of it) begins at 24 weeks into pregnancy. Between fertilisation and 24 weeks there is an arrangement of replicating cells which may lawfully be stopped from replicating. I'm not altogether clear if in law there has to be a good reason for doing so, adjudicated by lawful authority.

I quite understand your reluctance to try to get into the mind of a clearly infanticidal father, Abraham, and try to imagine how 'voices in the head' might have driven him to the atrocity that almost was. One can only speculate in the hopes of being correct that in the modern era the fellow would have been placed safely behind bars, possibly on a secure psychiatric ward, and that, should he ever be paroled he would be forbidden from having any contact with children.

"I substituted the word 'abort' for 'kill' in my reference to Abraham in anticipation of a religious objection to abortion. Religious people characterise abortion as killing. The two words are effectively interchangeable as far as the religious mind is concerned."

You seem to have conceived a considerable disrespect for the capacity for logical thinking of religious folk, sir? If I believe in God, am I one of your "religious people"? If someone does not believe in God, is he an "irreligious person"?
If I believe in God, must I then be unable to distinguish killing from the specific kind of killing which is induced abortion? Your sweeping assertion would seem to betray a certain prejudice, sir.

You continue:

"Please don't develop a line of semantic pedantry over this, sir.".

A bit rich, don't you think, sir, after yourself pontificating::

"Up to 24 weeks pregnancy, the disposal of an arrangement of replicating cells is an abortion. Beyond 24 weeks it is the unlawful killing of a proto-child. After birth it is the murder of an actual child"

This "proto-child" you speak of certainly gets full marks for the kind of spunky 'go-ahead', 'up-'n'- at-'em' initiative we all like to see in a youngster, if he can go from
"an arrangement of replicating cells" to a 'proto' and then an 'actual' child in such a short time. Might one not even be tempted - carefully avoiding any suggestion of semantic pedantry, of course - to describe the process as being rather more dynamic still and call it "life".

Thank you for your invitation to imagine dramatisations of the Abraham-Isaac incident and to form hypotheses about other people's professed reasons for putting to death their young but I must decline. I personally find drama uncongenial and I prefer not to pry into other people's motivations - especially at second-hand.

"Smudge"?? Indeed not, sir. British law draws a very clear line between abortion and killing. Up to 24 weeks pregnancy, the disposal of an arrangement of replicating cells is an abortion. Beyond 24 weeks it is the unlawful killing of a proto-child. After birth it is the murder of an actual child.

I substituted the word 'abort' for 'kill' in my reference to Abraham in anticipation of a religious objection to abortion. Religious people characterise abortion as killing. The two words are effectively interchangeable as far as the religious mind is concerned.

Please don't develop a line of semantic pedantry over this, sir. The two words are effectively the same to the religious mind in the context of human pregnancy. That being the case the word can, in parentheses and thus indicating a displacing from its customary context, be used in place of the word kill in reference to Abraham. It is of course meaningless to the non-religious mind in this usage because abortion is uniquely linked to the disposal of an arrangement of replicating cells up to 24 weeks into pregnancy according to law. Do you follow, sir?

It might be worth pursuing the religious theme for a moment, if you don't mind sir. The Abraham incident might be better understood if the Biblical context were better explained. Thus: Abraham was instructed by God to go to the mountains of Moriah and sacrifice his son Isaac in the form of a burnt offering. Isaac was led up to the place of sacrifice by his father with he, Isaac, innocently believing that an animal would be slaughtered, and he wondered where it was. 'Don't worry', Abraham told his wide-eyed son, 'God will provide a lamb'. I ask you, sir, to imagine the terror in the child's heart when Abraham suddenly grabbed his son and heaved him onto the sacrificial altar. Isaac was the lamb.

And then Abraham doesn't kill his son. He lets him go. Perhaps Abraham helped his son down after untying him with the words, 'Off you go my boy". It's not impossible, is it sir. If Isaac then continued with his life severely traumatised by his near-death experience at the hand of his father, the Bible doesn't say.

If your moral outrage at the thought of this hideous atrocity could be tempered for a moment, sir, I shall assume that the instruction from God did not issue from the clouds in the form of a Hollywood-esque booming voice. I'm going to go with 'voices in the head'.

I want to ask you, sir, if you would be prepared to take a view on a woman in early pregnancy claiming that 'voices in the head' had instructed her to abandon her pregnancy as a sacrificial offering? She might offer the fact that the abortion was carried through to conclusion because the same 'voices in the head' had not subsequently instructed her to do otherwise. Would that be an acceptable work-around the religious objection to abortion, sir? You may of course be completely irreligious yourself sir, but you might like to form a view all the same.

'Let me focus your attention on the last phrase in this description: '.....advance knowledge through science".'

Indeed. And I was talking about the Enlightenment philosophers, not the Enlightenment as a whole, which encompassed a much wider cultural movement. No doubt you'll see this as another 'pedantic sleight', but I can't help that.

I should have added the caveat that some philosophers also dabbled in science, but their science was largely separate from their empiricist philosophy, which championed science but made no specific scientific claims. At the very least, modern science has little bearing on Locke's theory of the self.

I've already dealt with your goalpost moving in precise detail, citing examples and references along the way. If the casual reader is short of a few hours of utter boredom he or she can simply place your submissions and my rebuttals side-by-side and make up their own minds. I'm quite happy with my conclusions.

You said....

"Most of the Enlightenment philosophers made no scientific claims at all, but rather, as their name suggests, philosophical ones."

More pedantic sleight. For speed and the convenience of the by now near-suicidal casual reader, I plucked this from Wikipedia....

"The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was a cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe and the American colonies. Its purpose was to reform society using reason (rather than tradition, faith and revelation) and advance knowledge through science".

Let me focus your attention on the last phrase in this description: '.....advance knowledge through science".

Let me recall what you said in part above: ".....made no scientific claims at all."

"Abraham was about to 'abort' his very much born son Isaac ....""
Deferring to your sensitivities, sir, I shall remove the word 'abort'. As follows....
"Abraham was about to kill his very much born son Isaac............."

Thank you very much, sir. Your kind rephrasing clarifies that the act said to have been contemplated on that occasion by Abraham was not abortion, as you had earlier suggested. I am much obliged.

You had earlier written:
"Mr Preston, you spent four paragraphs telling me that I should have placed inverted commas around the word abort. You appear to have imagined that I didn't know what the word meant and that I was unaware of its normal usage."

Not so, sir. I had assumed - perhaps erroneously - that you did indeed know what the word "abort" meant but were either using it figuratively, as a poet might do, or that you might intend for reasons of your own by using that word where it clearly was nonsensical in order perhaps to 'smudge' the dividing line between "killing" and "abortion".

'Now you introduce the idea of 'far greater' and the notion that this constitutes an additional 'difference'.'

No, that was my point from the beginning. When I referred to another life being involved, I meant, quite literally, another life, since abortion is the killing of a foetus (whether or not it constitutes murder in either a legal or an ethical sense). Clearly, if abortion is morally equivalent to murder, it causes a 'far greater' harm to its victim than the sort of negative externalities involved in drug use.

So, no additional difference. Perhaps your misinterpretation of my argument was down to a failure of communication on my part, but I don't think so. My earlier comment 'Both drug use and abortion can harm third parties in certain cases. The obvious difference is the nature and extent of that harm' seems fairly unambiguous.

'I would like to recommend to you, sir, a small but very instructive volume...'

Full marks for condescension, but I think I'm quite capable of arguing logically, thanks. While we're on the topic, though, you might want to consult your book on the ad hominem and straw man fallacies, both of which you seem fond of.

'The theories of the Enlightenment philosophers are many and varied, more or less fanciful given the only nascent state of scientific knowledge at the time'

A bold statement, and quite far off the mark. Most of the Enlightenment philosophers made no scientific claims at all, but rather, as their name suggests, philosophical ones. Locke's view of personhood is entirely compatible with a modern scientific understanding, or at least if it isn't you have to show why, rather than lazily asserting that their ideas aren't relevant because neuroscience hadn't been invented. Indeed, the empiricist conception of the self as expressed by Locke and Hume in some ways prefigures the modern rejection of the 'ghost in the machine'.

'the so-called mind and the quality of consciousness collectively remain among the greatest mysteries of the human condition, if not the greatest.'

Indeed, but unless you're denying the existence of consciousness and memory as subjective phenomena, this isn't relevant.

Mr Preston, sir, I find it very difficult following your strange presentational style, so if you'll bear with me I'll try and work through it as best I can. You asked me where my 'something else' came from and what it was. It was inferred from what you said. As follows....

"It could not, of course, be logically asserted that the processes you describe were the totality of the beginning of human physical life, but only that that was what a biologically-minded person would be likely to find interesting and significant"

In other words, the processes I described - the chromosomes coming together and squirming about in the cellular cytoplasm - did not comprise the "totality of the beginning of human physical life", and therefore I'm entitled to deduce that you think something else is going on. I expected you to tell me what that something else is, if you know what it is, the something else that must be added to my processes to make up your "totality of the beginning of human physical life." It could be that you were just saying 'well perhaps there is something else'. Well perhaps there is; something we don't know about, but that doesn't help us. It doesn't push the human story along.

Moving on...

"As for describing Abraham as being about to "abort his very much born son Isaac", isn't the use of such figurative language on a forum like this one likely to confuse the poor reader and make him wonder whether you may have some hidden agenda in using it?"

No one on any planet of literary expression, given the subject under discussion, that of abortion in the context of religious morality, would have any difficulty with the meaning of 'abort' in the expression in which I inserted it. Ref as follows, with the inverted commas added per my previous explanatory comment....

"Abraham was about to 'abort' his very much born son Isaac on the instruction of his god"

Deferring to your sensitivities, sir, I shall remove the word 'abort'. As follows....

"Abraham was about to kill his very much born son Isaac on the instruction of his god"

Reviewing your comment, sir, I am inclined to the view that your ripostes are in fact willful misunderstandings for the purpose of argument for argument's sake. If on the other hand it is the case that you simply don't grasp or understand anything I say, or that my facility in the English language is below par, then I urge you to say so, sir, and accept my apologies for my presumption.

" What I think you are saying is that, while a close examination of the initially fertilised cell would duly reveal the two sets of 23 chromosomes each, and other cytoplasmic raw material, it would not reveal a certain 'something else', the presence of which makes up the "totality of the beginning of human physical life.""

I'm afraid you are mistaken, sir, in so supposing. I made no mention of sets of chromosomes nor of anything cytoplasmic. You may perhaps notice the adverbial phrase "at best" with which I suggested that the accuracy of your description of the circumstances attending the beginning of human life could logically be modified.

“I would then have to ask you, sir," you continue "what that 'something else' is and why it cannot be seen or detected? “

Perhaps I can best return the question to you, sir, and ask whether you are asserting that your description of those circumstances, couched in the colourful imagery of “chromosomes” and “cytoplasmic raw material”, itself represents the totality of the beginning of human physical life and that that beginning is completely defined by that description.

“Is it some species of quantum mechanical phenomenon” you ask “as yet unaccounted for? Is it anticipated in the mathematics of string theory, say?”

I haven’t the foggiest idea, since you don’t say what you mean by “a certain something else”

“ Finally, sir, I would have to ask you” you add “how you know about it?”

Well, if you will tell me what you mean by “it”, sir, I may be able to say, perhaps not how, but whether I "know" anything "about it".

As for describing Abraham as being about to "abort his very much born son Isaac", isn't the use of such figurative language on a forum like this one likely to confuse the poor reader and make him wonder whether you may have some hidden agenda in using it?

"The point which you said I overlooked was related to my comment 'the obvious difference is that in the second case another life is involved', and from it you concluded that this remark was redundant. Completely wrongly, of course, because the difference is that the harm to the third party in the case of abortion is far greater, if the foetus is indeed a person deserving of protection."

"Completely wrongly", no less!

Now you introduce the idea of 'far greater' and the notion that this constitutes an additional 'difference'. You will note that the only 'difference' as it appears in your first remark is that 'another life is involved'. Your new 'difference' is the new goalpost move - apparently unheard of in the history of your argumentation outside of this forum.

So to recap...

It began with my saying that, as I had already anticipated your 'another life was involved' with my 'third party' anticipation of your moral concern, i.e. for the unborn child, your repetition of that concern in your subsequent reply was redundant. Perfectly simple and logically flawless. That, then, is the simple relationship between these two comments. I had anticipated your concern, and you had simply repeated it. Now you have added an extension. You have added "far greater" and introduced it as an additional 'difference'.

Somehow 'far greater' has been employed to modify the simple relationship between my anticipating your concern and you simply repeating it. You moved the goalposts by introducing an additional 'difference'. Your original 'difference', and I won't accept 'obvious' as implying any other, was that of, and only that of, "another life is involved'.

To wit, I would like to recommend to you, sir, a small but very instructive volume. It is by Douglas N. Walton and is titled: Informal Logic. A Handbook for Critical Argumentation.

The theories of the Enlightenment philosophers are many and varied, more or less fanciful given the only nascent state of scientific knowledge at the time, the non-existent evolutionary biology, the unheard-of neurobiology and neuroscience. They make interesting reading up to a point, but as amusements of the mind you can more or less take your pick, pay your money and take your choice. I presume you singled out Locke because of his association with liberalism - and one can go along with him on a number of points. Locke's theories of the mind are as fancifully valid as anyone else's.

The great Francis Crick in his celebrated The Astonishing Hypothesis found after a half a lifetime's research into the source of consciousness and the mind.....absolutely nothing. Crick could not find 'the ghost in the machine'. Thus the so-called mind and the quality of consciousness collectively remain among the greatest mysteries of the human condition, if not the greatest. There is as yet no molecular explanation. From that kernal of ignorance you can go wherever you want......and I see that you have.

Mr Preston, you spent four paragraphs telling me that I should have placed inverted commas around the word abort. You appear to have imagined that I didn't know what the word meant and that I was unaware of its normal usage. You are right on the first count. I left out the inverted commas. So here's the piece again, duly corrected. As follows....

"Abraham was about to 'abort' his very much born son Isaac on the instruction of his god"

And then again in the following paragraph. Please take it to have been the case that when I said: "Thus if a pregnant woman aborts naturally it is presumed by religious people to have been God's will.", I did not mean that the woman intentionaly aborts her unborn child, that instead it is a naturally occuring event - for whatever medical reason.

Your final paragraph I found hard to decipher. What I think you are saying is that, while a close examination of the initially fertilised cell would duly reveal the two sets of 23 chromosomes each, and other cytoplasmic raw material, it would not reveal a certain 'something else', the presence of which makes up the "totality of the beginning of human physical life."

I would then have to ask you, sir, what that 'something else' is and why it cannot be seen or detected? Is it some species of quantum mechanical phenomenon as yet unaccounted for? Is it anticipated in the mathematics of string theory, say? Finally, sir, I would have to ask you how you know about it? If you are harbouring evidence that might move the human story along, or otherwise have formulated a credible hypothesis on the basis of evidence, then I think you ought to reveal it to a world anxious to know. Thank you.

Contributor Paul P. whom I thank for kindly replying, seems intent upon confusing what is meant by “abortion” in the public perception, both from the point of view of obstetrics and of the man in the street, for he writes:

"Abraham was about to abort his very much born son Isaac on the instruction of his god"

Well, if his son Isaac was already born – in other words. If his mother’s period of “bearing him” was already duly and naturally over - he Isaac could not “abort” since he was already born nor could Abraham have “aborted” him, both because Isaac was already born and because Abraham was male and miscarriage, whether natural or induced, is not suffered by male persons.
As I understand the biblical context concerned , Abraham is reported to have contemplated sacrificing his son but to have been forbidden to do so by God.

You seem almost to have adopted a Humpty Dumpty "words mean whatever I want them to mean" approach to language.

You make reference to a hypothetical pregnant woman who "aborts naturally", mistaking a passive for an active process, as if a stillbirth were something that a pregnant woman does, when in reality it is something she suffers. In the public perception the word "abortion" has come to mean only deliberately induced miscarriage. Your use of the word here seems to disregard that public perception and so runs a risk of confusing some very different things.

"There is no mystery" you add "about how human bodies come into being. The male supplies 23 chromosomes, the female also 23. When they come together at fertilisation the process of construction begins,"

Maybe so, sir, but that can be at best only a description of the attendant circumstances of the beginning of physical human life. In other words how life begins, according to the gospel of someone with a particular - and perhaps specialised - interest in things like chromosomes and DNA and such like concepts.
It could not, of course, be logically asserted that the processes you describe were the totality of the beginning of human physical life, but only that that was what a biologically-minded person would be likely to find interesting and significant?

Sorry, yes, you're right. The point which you said I overlooked was related to my comment 'the obvious difference is that in the second case another life is involved', and from it you concluded that this remark was redundant. Completely wrongly, of course, because the difference is that the harm to the third party in the case of abortion is far greater, if the foetus is indeed a person deserving of protection.

In your other post, you go on to say 'Your first paragraph was a spin-doctoresque plucking out of a body of text something you felt you could legitimately dispute while ignoring the theme of the text.'

Not so. The body of text I 'plucked out' was, as far as I could tell, the essence of your argument. This was the paragraph in its entirety: 'I am of course cognizant of the religious case for the 'sanctity of human life'. Religious people are not required to have abortions by law. Religious females are entitled, as far as their own bodies are concerned, to regard eight cells as divinely sanctified human life. The decision becomes moot at 24 weeks when the law takes over and the definition of murder is accommodated.' In other words, the law says that abortion isn't murder, so religious people have nothing to complain about so long as they're not forced into abortion.

You continue you with this strange remark: 'For religious people, then, there are to all intents no abortion laws.' Again, you're begging the question. In a society like Iran's where homosexuals are routinely hanged, would you say there were to all intents no draconian sodomy laws for those who don't wish to engage in sodomy, and that therefore nobody has anything to complain about? Clearly everyone would have something to complain about – namely the execution of undeserving people. Likewise abortion, if the law on it is wrong.

When I said 'If abortion is murder', I was clearly talking in terms of ethics, not the law. The point of this discussion is that I'm challenging the law, so repeatedly saying, 'Ah, but the law says it isn't murder!' hardly advances your argument.

'Your third paragraph is a rehash of the homunculus argument' Your understanding of the Lockean view of personhood is rather lacking if you believe that. Unlike mind-body dualists, who are committed to a view of the self as unified and unchanging, Lockeans needn't hold any such view. Their account of the persistence of the self over time is related to continuity of memory, which is relatively unmysterious.

I'm aware that consciousness is 'acknowledged to have as yet no explanation in molecular biology', but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, and can't be the basis of personhood. Taking the somatic view of personhood, as you apparently do, leads you into all sorts of bizarre and unintuitive conclusions which I won't go into here.

The 'cognizance' that religious people have a view of human life in terms of its sanctity according to the laws of their religion, and therefore are not at liberty themselves to dispose of it without the approval of, or upon instruction of, their god. Abraham was about to abort his very much born son Isaac on the instruction of his god. This was fine. Had he chosen to do this off his own bat it would not have been fine. It would have been murder. Thus if a pregnant woman aborts naturally it is presumed by religious people to have been God's will. If she does so herself at any time from conception it is deemed to be murder within the meaning of the 6th Commandment, which instructs: Thou shalt do no murder.

"If I “am” no more than my body, do you mean – extending your principle – that, for example, a smaller man is ipso facto less significant than a larger one, or a thinner man than a fatter man?"

This has nothing to do with anything within the context of my argument. A smaller man? A larger one? I have no idea what you are talking about.

"But you neglect to say what you mean in this context by “it” or why or how such ‘arrangements’ mysteriously “came into being” or how you know such things"

"It" is the body, the human body. There is no mystery about how human bodies come into being. The male supplies 23 chromosomes, the female also 23. When they come together at fertilisation the process of construction begins, the DNA of the chromosomes supplying the design instructions for the necessary proteins, et al. The atoms that comprise the molecular construction of DNA came into being at or shortly after the Big Bang, roughly 13.7 billion years ago.

"I would however be interested to learn whether there are female water buffalo who deliberately seek the destruction of their young, as some humans seem disposed to do."

Not that I am aware of. To my knowledge only humans seek to do this. It does seem to be counter-evolutionary in that Nature seems to have provided for its own negation in developing brains to the extent that willful self-destruction can be contemplated. But Nature is mysterious on many levels. Don't even think about getting into quantum mechanics, at least not before a stiff drink - very stiff.

"It's rare that I side with Peter Preston, but I feel I should say something here in his defence."

Noble of you, to be sure, but I fear you will get the poor fellow hanged. Your first paragraph was a spin-doctoresque plucking out of a body of text something you felt you could legitimately dispute while ignoring the theme of the text, You plucked out this...

'Religious people are not required to have abortions by law'

Well of course not. Let me rephrase...

Religious people are at liberty essentially to ignore the laws on abortion as they, the religious people, by default, will never have cause to invoke them. For religious people, then, there are to all intents no abortion laws. One is almost tempted to characterise them, the religious people, as outlaws in this context.

Your second paragraph was garbled. There was an inexplicable reference to China - quite divorced from the points at issue here about which the argumentation falls within the pale of British law. Abortion is not murder within the meaning of British law. Your conclusion was predicated on a premiss that was false. This is getting to be a bit of a habit.

Your third paragraph is a rehash of the homunculus argument, the 'ghost in the machine', the little man inside who is monitoring everything as if watching the experiences of the body - sights, sounds and feelings - projected on to a screen - inside the brain presumably, or wherever. The liitle man is actually *you*, the *you* who 'owns' your body.

This is fanciful philosophy, an attempt to account for consciousness and self awareness, acknowledged to have as yet no explanation in molecular biology. You can please yourself. As far as I am concerned, when 23 male chromosomes make the acquaintance of 23 female chromosomes and the construction of an entirely new human being gets underway, there is no evidence of any 'ghost in the machine' making an appearance at any point in the production process. It's just chemical process driven by the automaticity of electrical bonding according to the dictats of valence. This much we know. If you know any better and can present evidence of your betterment then I, we, and the world would love to hear of it.

'I insisted nothing of the sort' Well, clearly you did, since you prefaced that quote with 'You chose to ignore...' The redundancy remark was made with regard to another point."

This was the exchange:

I initially said this....

{{"What is the difference between "It's my body and I'll die if I want to" and "It's the woman's body and she'll abort if she want's to"?

Before moving on, you are not suggesting, are you, that in the case of abortion the impact of the woman's 'free-choice' behaviour, because she has 'sovereignty over her own body', on someone else ought to be taken into consideration from a moral point of view, and that laws need to be enacted circumscribing that behaviour in the interests of the third party or parties? Are you??" }}

You replied as follows....

{{"Well, the obvious difference is that in the second case another life is involved"}}

...to which I answered...

{{"You chose to ignore this...

"......the impact of the woman's 'free-choice' behaviour, because she has 'sovereignty over her own body', on someone else ought to be taken into consideration from a moral point of view, and that laws need to be enacted circumscribing that behaviour in the interests of the third party or parties? Are you??"

The 'third party or parties' I referred to was obviously the baby or babies. Thus is this from you redundant...

"Well, the obvious difference is that in the second case another life is involved." }}

(You will note that the two 'sovereignty' reference quotations from me are substantially identical)

Paul P – 'I insisted nothing of the sort' Well, clearly you did, since you prefaced that quote with 'You chose to ignore...' The redundancy remark was made with regard to another point.

'I am talking about the law as it is, not what I think ought to be the law.' OK, fine, but I see little point in doing so, because we're both agreed on what the law actually says.

'I don't oppose government regulation in the interest of public safety - the moral responsibility of democratic government.' Sounds rather statist to me, but that's no doubt because I'm an anti-regulation zealot.

'Why do you find it necessary to add these little jibes all the time?' To my mind, you were asking for it with your wholly unwarranted and baseless accusation that my arguments were somehow 'Machiavellian'. My exchange with Elaine here, to give just one example, has been perfectly civil, so I'd say the fault was at your end.

Paul P – It's rare that I side with Peter Preston, but I feel I should say something here in his defence.

Your argument that 'Religious people are not required to have abortions by law' is a fairly standard one among abortion enthusiasts, but alas doesn't withstand any degree of scrutiny. Much the same, after all, could be said of domestic violence, burglary and rape – nobody forces people to engage in these crimes, but that's not the point.

I'm not necessarily suggesting a parity between abortion and rape etc., but simply pointing out the logic (or lack thereof) of your position. If abortion is murder, then whether anyone is forced into it is irrelevant (although the phenomenon of forced abortion in China is of course deeply disturbing).

Incidentally, rejecting the idea of a soul (as I do) doesn't commit anyone to believing that one is identical to one's body. Plenty of atheist materialists subscribe to an essentially Lockean view of personhood, on which a person is 'a thinking intelligent Being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing in different times and places'. From this perspective the phrase 'ownership of our bodies' is perfectly coherent.

"Since you insist that I didn't address this (although anyone with the most basic reading comprehension skills would know that I did),"

I insisted nothing of the sort ( (although anyone with the most basic reading comprehension skills would know that I didn't)

I said that since I had already anticipated your answer your actual answer was redundant.

We are talking at different ends of the stick. I am talking about the law as it is, not what I think ought to be the law. You are talking about what you think ought to be the law - which can be anything you choose, anything at all if you ruled the world.

Thus for the purpose of my argument there is, up to 24 weeks, no "another living thing" and therefore there can be no killing of it. The woman's sovereignty over her own body includes that of the collection of proto-human cells that are not yet "another living thing" according to law. Your moving your sovereignty goalposts off the pitch entirely allows you to claim that the woman cannot have sovereignty over her body at any time during her pregnancy and therefore the sovereignty issue doesn't apply. This leaves the route to the deregulation of adoption open for you with a clear argumentation conscience. So there's no discussion here. We're not on the same page.

And I'm not a statist, much less am I a statist to the core. I oppose government interference in the free-market, i.e. manipulation of the free-market in pursuit of electoral agendas. I don't oppose government regulation in the interest of public safety - the moral responsibility of democratic government. If the government decides upon receipt of credible data from credible pharmacological sources that cannabis is harmful and criminalises its supply and possession, then that's fine by me. You on the other hand summarily decide otherwise on the basis of popular usage already established and would place it on the supermarket shelves alongside the cyanide. You'd label them with "Harmful Facts". If people ignored them, well, that would be their lookout.

Anyway, I'm tired of this discussion and I'm weary of having to go back and search it out. Thanks for all the smears, ad hominem and the insults. For example per this page: (although anyone with the most basic reading comprehension skills would know that I did). Why do you find it necessary to add these little jibes all the time? Your commentary is replete with them. Couldn't you just stick to the points of argument? Anyway, have a great day.

I of course meant 'I imagine you'd sympathise with my view, though, that convenience (for want of a better word) *should not* always take precedence over the life of the child.' Sorry for any confusion caused.

Posted by: Joshua Wooderson | 01 October 2012 at 12:11 PM

Well, that's good. I would say that it should never be *convenience* that takes precedence over the life of the child because if you allow convenience to come into the equation, no woman would ever give a child up for adoption. It will always be more convenient to abort rather than to carry a child to term and go through delivery. The only reason she would carry a child to term and deliver it, only to give it to someone else, is if she understands that to do otherwise is immoral.

Contributor Paul P, whom I thank for kindly replying writes:
“I am of course cognizant of the religious case for the “sanctity of human life””.

Well I dare say a few other people are similarly “cognizant”, sir, but what point are you seeking by that ‘cognizance’ to make? Are you suggesting that my opposition to the recently decriminalised extermination of living ante-natal infants must rest on religious principles?
I congratulate you on couching your objections to what I wrote in such picturesquely opaque terminology but it would have been nicer, if you had sought instead some logical refutation of my assertions rather than simply blinding me with ‘science’.

“You are your body. What else is there?” you ask and your question reveals how thin is the logical ice on which you are attempting to skate.

If I “am” no more than my body, do you mean – extending your principle – that, for example, a smaller man is ipso facto less significant than a larger one, or a thinner man than a fatter man?

“It is a temporary arrangement of atoms” you postulate “that came into being at or shortly after the Big Bang”

But you neglect to say what you mean in this context by “it” or why or how such ‘arrangements’ mysteriously “came into being” or how you know such things..

Why in any case should what some practitioners of the sciences and their fellow-travellers call the “Big Bang” be thought to have happened in the past rather than that we and the whole universe are experiencing the actual explosion of energy itself but lack the sensory capacity to conceive it otherwise than serially through time?
Thank you for your invitation to compare the gestation of a pregnant human female with that of a pregnant water buffalo but I must decline your invitation as being rather indelicate and possibly embarrassing to both of the ladies concerned.
I would however be interested to learn whether there are female water buffalo who deliberately seek the destruction of their young, as some humans seem disposed to do.

Elaine - I of course meant 'I imagine you'd sympathise with my view, though, that convenience (for want of a better word) *should not* always take precedence over the life of the child.' Sorry for any confusion caused.

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